Advances in computer processing power and network communications have made information from a wide variety of sources available to users on computer networks. Computer networking allows network computer users to share information, software applications and hardware devices and internetworking enables a set of physical networks to be connected into a single network such as the Internet. Today, computers connected to the Internet have almost instant access to information stored in relatively distant regions. Moreover, computers connected to networks other than the Internet also have access to information stored on those networks. The World Wide Web (Web), a hypermedia system used on the Internet, enables hypertext linking, whereby documents automatically reference or link other documents located on connected computer networks around the world. Thus, users connected to the Internet have almost instant access to information stored in relatively distant regions.
A page of information on the Web may include references to other Web pages and may include a broad range of multimedia data including textual, graphical, audio, and animation information. Currently, Internet users retrieve information from the Internet, through the Web, by ‘visiting’ a web site on a computer that is connected to the Internet.
The web site is, in general terms, a server application that displays information stored on a network server computer. The web site accepts connections from client programs, such as Internet browser applications. Browser applications, such as Microsoft Explorer™ or Netscape Internet Browser™, allow Internet users to access information displayed on the web site. Most browser applications display information on computer screens and permit a user to navigate through the Web using a mouse. Like other network applications, Web browsing uses the client-server paradigm where state is maintained as an adjunct to the HTTP protocol. When given the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of a document, the browser application becomes a client and it contacts a server application specified in the URL to request the document. After receiving the document from the server application, the browser application displays the document for the user. When the browser application interacts with the server application, the two applications follow the Hyper-Text Transport Protocol (HTTP). HTTP allows the browser application to request a specific article, which the server application then returns. To ensure that browser applications and server applications inter-operate unambiguously, HTTP defines the exact format for requests sent from the browser application to the server application as well as the format of replies that the server application returns.
As the number of physical networks connected to the Internet continues to grow, so too will the number of web sites that are accessible to Internet users and so too will commercial and other activity on the Internet. Providers of products and/or services use the Internet to offer better and faster services to members. For example, providers of health insurance enable their members to use the Internet to find medical providers within a specified geography area. Upon finding the desired medical provider, the member may sign up or set an appointment with the provider by traditional means, such as a telephone call, or through the Internet. Most medical providers schedule appointments in advance. Therefore, this method of finding medical providers is adequate for normal appointment scheduling. However, members who need to make an appointment on short notice may have a harder time finding a provider using this method. When the member obtains a list of providers within a specified area, the member has no way of determining which providers have opening slots in their schedule. The problem of finding a provider on short notice is even more acute for members who are outside of their normal provider network or in a distant and/or unfamiliar city. Moreover, for members travelling internationally, there may be communication problems with providers who speak different languages.
Additionally, if a provider schedule opens up, for example through cancellation, the provider has no way of filling an appointment slot by finding members who are seeking appointments on short notice. What is needed, therefore, is a system and method for enabling members and providers to obtain appointments on short notice. The system must also facilitate communications between members and providers speaking different languages.